One of the first Android-based devices, if not the first, to be officially released in 2012, is the Meizu MX smartphone, a very good-looking piece of equipment that packs some pretty snappy hardware too.

The MX has only been made available in China and Hong Kong for the moment, where hundreds of people have been eager to get their hands on the smartphone as soon as the New Year had come.

Powered by a snappy Exynos dual-core processor and featuring 1 GB of RAM, the Meizu MX looks pretty elegant and stylish, being roughly as sleek as the iPhone 4 or the Samsung Galaxy S. As a matter of fact, in terms of design, the MX looks like a winner to me, being the kind of device that you wouldn’t be ashamed to pull out of your pocket on the streets or anywhere in public.

The smartphone sports a 4.3-inch touchscreen with 960 x 640-pixels resolution, which once again is pretty on-par with most of the high-end devices today, and features 16 GB of internal storage, as well as an 8 MPx camera with autofocus and LED flash, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, GPS and accelerometer.

As far as software goes, the Meizu MX runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, which is not exactly ideal, but the producers have promised an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich in the near future, so fingers crossed for those of you who have purchased or are planning to purchase the smartphone.

In terms of pricing, the MX is available for 2,999 yuan in China, which would ”translate” into around 475 dollars, according to today’s currency rate. On the other hand, if the smartphone will ever be released in the United States or in Europe, I would expect it to go for well under 400 bucks to stand a chance in a competition with the established and well-known devices from Samsung, LG or Apple.

Let’s not forget to mention something about the impact this smartphone has already made in China and Hong Kong, where hundreds of eager technology enthusiasts have pre-ordered the device a few weeks back only to stand in line at the store yesterday for hours… Now that’s what I call passion for gadgets!